Funeral mass for Dame Edna O’Brien
Funeral mass for Dame Edna O’Brien
Country girls, myself and school pal Katriona Briggs were fortunate to be in the congregation for Edna O’Brien’s funeral mass in St. Joseph’s Church, Tuamgraney, Co. Clare.
Set among fields and freshly mowed meadows, on the outskirts of the village, the ancient stone chapel, (capacity of less than a hundred), was idyllic, the perfect place, for the final chapter in Edna O’Brien’s long, industrious and illustrious life.
With recessed altar, arch-framed and vintage iconography, her seagrass coffin stood between the blue and white robed Blessed Virgin on the right and the Sacred Heart to the left. Around the walls were ornate, wood-framed Stations of the Cross that hung between narrow windows.
The classical quartet played Carrickfergus and The Lark in the Clear air as our President Michael D. Higgins, Sabina and representatives of Taoiseach and Tánaiste made their way to the front. Chief Celebrant Fr. Donagh O’Meara welcomed all, acknowledging ‘a remarkable woman who has left us but she has left us with innumerable treasures,’ from where he segued into a guided meditation.
Gifts were brought by family members to represent her life, Stephen Rea for the first reading, her son Carlo for the second.
An academic, literary figure, she herself chose Fr. Donagh O’Meara for her funeral mass. He began the sermon with Mary Oliver’s poem, The Journey, quoting the lines; ‘and there was a new voice/which you slowly/recognised as your own,’ and what a voice.
He knew Edna well enough to recognise her core values; a family woman, determined, resilient, generous, a speaker of truths, he said she ‘held up a mirror when that time in Ireland was full of narrowness, she brought the experiences of women to the fore and we undermined her, we isolated her, we, to our shame,’ words profoundly stated in the presence of church and state.
He spoke of her love of writing, deeply committed until only weeks before her death. He also said she was a ‘searcher,’ and like Leonard Cohen, ‘she took the inner life seriously.’ To finish he quoted John O’Donoghue from Death of a Beloved, saying her name with warmth, intimacy, Edna; ‘may you continue to inspire us...until we see your beautiful face again/in that land where there is no more separation/where all tears will be wiped from our mind/and where we will never lose you again.’
Professor Helen Phelan sang parts of the mass, in English, Irish and Latin. Soloist Sarah King sang Ave Maria and Panis Angelicus during communion and Noirin Ní Riain performed Gregorian chant.
Edna’s son Marcus gave the reflection, saying how he had learned as a parent that the most important thing to give a child is love and to give it all the time, because he had gotten that from his mother. He concluded with an emotional reading of a boyish poem he had written for her, a poem ‘to our fabulous mother from your two best pals, Carlo and Sasha.’
Edna’s nephew Michael Blake, a tenor with an earthy Clare accent sang Danny Boy, which brought the congregation to tears.
Novelist Andrew O’Hagan eulogised Edna, speaking of her creativity and sense of fun. He said her ‘comic engine was always turning beside the great turbines of her creativity, she never lacked stamina, she lived inside her prose.’ He knew her great awareness of the Irish landscape, the mood of the trees here, the lap of the waters in Lough Derg, where she took him on a visit to her childhood home at Drewsborough House, coincidentally (or not) during a visit when she planned her funeral and burial place on Holy Island.
What a privilege it was to be part of her final journey, to be among the elite of Irish literature, culture, history and heritage, heads of church and state. To see neighbours and friends gathered outside the ancient chapel waiting on her cortège, heads bowed in reverence, hearts proud of her connection to this remote, beautiful, understated part of our island, sincerity in every tribute paid to this towering icon in the Irish literary cannon.
Fr. O’Meara’s words fluttered like butterflies in the summer air around us; ‘maybe she has discovered now, that in God’s eyes, she was infinitely loved.’